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Genia to miss England clash?

Date published: November 28 2016

Australian scrum-half Will Genia looks set to miss Australia’s Test against England through a contractual dispute.

The Twickenham match-up falls outside the November Test window, meaning Genia's club Stade Français has no obligation to release him and Wallabies coach Michael Cheika said at this point the club has denied the release but Australia wouldn’t give up just yet.

"Right now, from their conversations we’ve had with Paris, they’re not releasing him. We’ll have another crack and see what we can do," Cheika told the Australian Rugby website said.

"It seems unlikely (that he will play), the French place more importance on their game for Will than our internationals, that’s the way the rules are and we’ll just have to deal with it."

Cheika said the loss to Ireland hadn’t affected those negotiations, with the Wallabies not broaching the subject until after the game.

"Not at all. We didn’t ask until today or last night. We didn’t really ask – there’s no point in asking, just deal with the game in front of you. We asked last night after the game and that was the response they came back with," he said.

Genia’s absence would open the door for Nick Phipps to return to the starting nine spot that he held in June when Genia was injured.

After June, Genia returned to feature in all of Australia's Rugby Championship clashes, before going back to France for the third Bledisloe, which fell outside the international window.

The scrum-half isn’t the only one in danger of missing the Test, with forward Dean Mumm cited overnight for a lifting tackle on Irish prop Tadhg Furlong.

Cheika said they wouldn’t be speculating on Mumm’s availability for the Test until after the verdict of his hearing was handed down.

"I don’t want to talk about it beforehand, I’ll talk about it afterwards because whatever you say here you don’t want it to be held against you when they come into the hearing. I just want to let the procedure pan out and then afterwards we can talk about it," he said.